


The Highs and Lows of Being in Love

by CoryHolmes



Category: Jessica Jones (TV)
Genre: Emotional Manipulation, F/M, Kilgrave is a walking trigger, Rape Aftermath, Rape/Non-con Elements, This got a lot darker than I was intending
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-02-15
Updated: 2016-02-15
Packaged: 2018-05-20 17:17:46
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Rape/Non-Con
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,824
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/6018181
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/CoryHolmes/pseuds/CoryHolmes
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Early in her captivity, Jessica charts the course of her emotions over a span of twelve hours.</p>
            </blockquote>





	The Highs and Lows of Being in Love

**Author's Note:**

> I got this idea from a discussion I had with Brink, and it kinda grew from there. You should read Brink's stuff, since it's much better than anything I put out.
> 
> Fair warning, this got a lot darker than I'd intended. Kilgrave is an evil prick and I don't ship him with anyone, let alone Jessica. Heed the warnings on this one!

“You're in love with me. You know you are.” Kilgrave's commands weren't permanent, but they didn't just suddenly stop working either. They stood in the forefront of the mind for only so long and then slowly faded into the background until they were gone completely. That didn't make them any easier to deal with, though. “There's no one else in your life that matters as much as I do.”

For the first few hours of the day, Jessica loved him. She loved him with all her heart. She'd never really believed in the fairy tale love stories, but she was living one. She'd met Kilgrave just out of the blue one night, following... whatsherface's advice about heroics. There was a man being beaten by two thugs and Jessica just couldn't walk away while knowing that she could help. And help she did, by way of super strength and guts. Then Kilgrave was there, and a whirlwind of emotion followed his arrival.

Having never been swept off her feet (and thinking that it was a stupid expression, right up there with “let's do lunch”), she didn't know at the time why she'd taken Kilgrave's hand and walked with him to the szechuan restaurant. She remembered thinking at the time that she was losing her mind, spilling all her secrets and private thoughts to an utter stranger, but that's what happens when a girl gets swept off her feet. Right? It was so clear later on that she was instantly smitten with him, so smitten that when he took her back to his hotel room that night she eagerly fucked him on the soft sheets.

It had to be instant love. She'd never fucked on the first date before. Then again, she'd never been that much in love before. 

Jessica ached for his return. In the late afternoon, he'd left her on the bed and admonished her not to leave the bed until he'd returned. He'd also told her to be sure to miss him while he was gone, and she'd begged him to stay with her on the bed. His handsome face broke into a wide smile at her appeals but he still walked out the door. She was devastated as soon as she heard the hotel room door click shut. She missed him so terribly much. What else needed to happen to prove to herself how much she loved him?

He'd told her not to leave the bed, but hadn't forbidden her from moving around on it. Jessica rolled over and wrapped her arms around the pillow that he slept on. She pressed her face to it and inhaled, trying desperately to cling to the scent of his cologne. It wasn't enough. She wanted- no, needed- him back with her. She hugged the pillow, trying to pretend it was him and they were still in the afterglow of the morning's glorious sex. She wasn't a clingy person by nature, but she was so in love with him that she did it anyway.

Around hour eight is when things started getting fuzzy.

If she loved him as much as she did, why did she mouth off at him the other day? Jessica squished her eyes closed against the memory, all the hateful things she'd spewed at him stabbing her like a dagger in the gut. She pressed her fists against her eyes, trying to drive the words out of her mind. Words like “rape” and “freedom” and “away from you”. Jessica had spent most of the morning apologizing for them, both with words and actions, and Kilgrave had seemed to forgive her.

But why had she said them in the first place? Even more confusing was his reactions to the words. He'd brought up whatshername (what had he called her? Patsy?) and demanded if the other woman had said them when Jessica had called her. Of course not! Jessica had been good and followed his directions about making that call in the first place. Jessica hadn't mentioned anything other than how much she was enjoying her time with Kilgrave; in fact, she'd emphasized it repeatedly (much to Kilgrave's delight). She'd gone out of her way to assure... Patsy... that everything was fine, nothing was amiss, and that she shouldn't worry about Jessica's long absence. The rest of the call had been pretty basic and hadn't really lasted long (another of his directives).

Jessica clutched the pillow tighter. She was so, so sorry for how she'd treated him after that call. It was physically painful to think about how sorry she was. Being forgiven by him was one thing, but Jessica really hadn't forgiven herself. She should know better than to say things like that to the love of her life!

Wasn't he?

The pillowcase tickled the side of her face, and Jessica wished it was Kilgrave's lips, one of the little touches he always made on her. Sometimes his fingertips, sometimes his palms, sometimes his lips; he was never not touching her. She liked that. It made her feel wanted and desired.

Hour ten is when things really started coming unglued.

He'd been gone from the bed for hours by that time. There were only so many positions Jessica could wiggle into before boredom had set in, and still she clutched the pillow like a lifeline. Dammit, why did he leave? Why did he paralyze her and leave her on the bed instead of giving her some basic freedoms? It's not like the suite wasn't amply stocked or anything. Hell, she didn't even have to call for room service (not that he'd ever let her, mind).

But why would she want to call room service? Why was calling Patsy so important to her? Why did she hold back when she'd told him how she really thought of him after that call? She'd held back because he'd told her to speak properly to him and that had made her mind fuzzy. Fuzzy like it was right then, in fact.

Not enjoying the turn of her thoughts, Jessica decided to focus on remembering why she loved him in the first place. He was so handsome for starters. His five o'clock shadow just enough to make him not baby-faced. She'd seen him freshly-shaved once (she'd been the one shaving him, at his request), and he'd looked so young it made Jessica feel like a cradle-robber!

Then there was all the pomp and circumstance he'd gifted her with. Living in New York was expensive, and while Pasty- no, _Trish_ , had more than enough money to cover their expenses, Jess had insisted on getting her own job and paying her share. That meant looking at the very hotel she was staying in only from the outside and imagining just what forms a five-star rating would take. With Kilgrave's affections, she'd seen it from the inside. The amenities were amazing. The on-site massage parlour was just epic, and she'd made more use of their services than she'd ever had before. Kilgrave often insisted that she pamper herself, so she could look her best for him.

And speaking of looking at her best, the clothes! She had never enjoyed all the frilly, girly things that Kilgrave bought for her, but she wore them for his benefit. He often complimented her when she was able to make one of his selections even better than he'd told her it would be. And when he insisted that she forgo underwear (regardless of her choices) she left them behind for him. Isn't that what a girl does when she's in love?

Except that she didn't enjoy any of it at all. It made her feel like a slab of meat being trotted out for how she looked while draped on Kilgrave's arm, instead of any sort of value that Jess the woman might have.

The pillow had long since slipped from her grasp, and Jessica curled into a little ball on the bed. She allowed herself a moment of grief (what for?) before returning to the task of sorting out why she loved Kilgrave so much.

Okay, so the clothes thing was fucking irritating, but there were other things she loved about him. The sex was fan-fucking-tastic. He made her so wet and needy and hungry for him like no other man before him (a fact that he had her repeat. Often.) He played her body like a fiddle, just knowing all the places she liked being touched and just how to touch them (he regularly grilled her on what she enjoyed and didn't. He seemed to gloss over that second part more often than she'd like). With his bountiful charm, just a few choice words whispered at dinner would have her panting and needing him and she was barely able to keep her hands off of him until they'd made it back to the hotel (or the backseat of the car, on more than a few occasions). And she sucked his cock more often than she had any other man, and kept smiling at him the whole time (his standard request most days, heedless of whether they were in the privacy of his suite or not. She didn't like that last part, either).

But overall, Jessica had to admit that there were far more pluses than minuses, and that seemed good enough to warrant how she felt about him. Nobody's perfect, let alone herself so why should she throw stones? He annoyingly pointed out her many imperfections, usually when she'd angered him about something or another. She at least had the decency to keep most of her opinions to herself! (most of the time, sometimes she slipped up. She didn't like when that happened, if only for the consequences that followed).

Hour twelve was by far the worst part.

It was thinking about Trish that finally caused the cobwebs to fall from her mind. Jessica had been walking with Trish outside of the very hotel she would later be caged in, and had off-handedly remarked that she was curious about how it actually looked on the inside. Trish had raised a brow, took Jess's hand, and brought her inside to the lobby. 

Spending her teenage years in the Walker household had shown Jessica what money could buy, but this was the sort of hotel that only the wealthy could afford. The decor was expensive, the staff outfitted in expensive uniforms, the actually-living plants in place of plastic ones a cheaper hotel would have... It all screamed money at Jessica, and she'd turned to her sister and- And oh god! Trish! 

Snapping free from the memory, Jessica shot up from the bed and gasped as the last vestiges of Kilgrave's command for her to love him completely slipped from her. Then the more recent memories of what he'd done to her came forward and Jessica slid onto her back and into the fetal position, shame and regret and bone-deep violation washing over her.

Jesus Christ, she wanted to vomit. The bile rose in her throat, but knowing that the edge of the bed might well have been on the other side of an invisible force field, Jess swallowed it back down. The burning was good, actually; it reminded her that she was alive and finally herself again. 

With the passing of his command, Jessica was free to admit just how much she hated Kilgrave. She'd been kidnapped, enslaved, and made to be like his personal doll and fuck on command. She hated that he made her do all the things that he did. She hated how much he enjoyed her mortification at being made to show him her tits in public, at the restaurant, on the side of the street... If the whim took him, he'd make her suck him off, too. If he was in a particularly bad mood or just wanted to punish her for not being his perfect toy, he'd use his powers to compel her actions but leave her mind free to really appreciate the shame and humiliation. One more than one occasion, he'd not even given her the opportunity to clean up, instead forcing her to walk back with his semen dribbling down her burning cheeks.

She was suddenly missing him again. Jess rolled over and grabbed the pillow again, this time imagining it was his neck she was squeezing. With his command to love him expired, she knew that the desire for his return wasn't hers and could tell herself that. Not since she'd shoved Dorthy Walker away from Trish had Jessica wanted to hurt someone as much as she wanted to hurt Kilgrave. God, how she wanted to kill him!

She hated his little touches. He was always touching her, stroking her, toying with her hair while she could do nothing to stop him. It made her skin crawl each and every time and reminded her that she was nothing more than his slave, more a prized possession than an actual woman. And his desire for her constant smile! Even just the sensation of her lips curving upwards had come to make her stomach heave. 

Jessica was going to enjoy killing him, she really was. In her darker moments, she imagined what it would be like to abuse him the way he had her. The things she could do to him, to make him hurt the way he'd hurt her. But those moments were few and far in between if she were honest with herself. What she wanted more than anything is to just be free of him. To leave him, leave the silken cage she was trapped in, leave the shame and humiliation and anger behind and be free.

The door turned and opened, and he was there, a cheery, “Hello, darling!” ringing out. Jessica squeezed her eyes shut, closed herself into a tight ball (like that'd protect her from him at all) and swallowed another wave of bile. She shuddered as he came into the bedroom and tried to pull away when he reached out and caressed her bare neck. “Oh, don't be like that. You're in love with me, remember? More than anyone else.”

And thus, the cycle began anew.

  
 

More than a year after that day, after Reva and the accident that killed him, when Jessica finally caved to Trish's well-meant prying about just what Kilgrave had done to her, Jessica held back certain truths. Trish had nodded, cried, and was generally sympathetic in all the right places as Jess recounted just how awful the experience really was, but Jess didn't share the whole story.

It was only later, when her defenses were dulled by as much alcohol as she could drink, that she really let herself examine the worst of it all: the soul-crushing emptiness that followed the lapsing of Kilgrave's command. For those first few hours, Jessica had been as happy as she had ever been since the accident that killed her brother and parents. She was free from the self-loathing, free from the dark corners of her own mind that insisted that she was at fault for everything that went wrong to all the people around her, and free from the agony of her captivity.

For a few hours, she was free from herself.

It was like what Trish had described her drug addiction like. It wasn't just that the drugs made her artificially happy, or given her the energy to be a worldwide starlet at such a young age. No, the most insidious part was that for a few hours in a drugged-out haze Trish had felt free from the life her own mother had trapped her in. And it was that freedom that Trish had kept chasing for all those years with drugs.

Jessica had learned just what her sister had meant. While she always hated the crash afterwords, she found herself learning to anticipate at least a few hours of joy when Kilgrave forced her to love him.

And Jessica never, ever told anyone of the times that Kilgrave didn't have to force her to love him but instead she sought to on her own. She kept that part tightly to herself, not letting Trish or the quack therapist even come close to learning of it. She never wanted to admit to anyone of the times that she had voluntarily loved her captor and rapist. When she was so tired of fighting him that it was easier to just give in.

No amount of booze could dull the shame of those memories. It was easier to remind herself that he'd raped her so often and thoroughly, than admit that there were times when she was happy to wake him up with a blowjob, or when she was genuinely thrilled that she took his breath away with pulling a particular ensemble together when they went out to dinner.

Those memories were the worst ones of all. And the ones that made her reach for any bottle that she could get.


End file.
